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Auto alternatives for the 21st centuryTue, 31 Mar 2015 14:25:22 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.2Tesla’s Roadster 3.0 Package Delivers 400-mile Rangehttp://www.hybridcars.com/teslas-roadster-3-0-package-delivers-400-mile-range/
http://www.hybridcars.com/teslas-roadster-3-0-package-delivers-400-mile-range/#commentsFri, 26 Dec 2014 22:50:17 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=233457Tesla is releasing a new upgrade package for its Roadster that will almost double the car’s range. The company announced today that the Roadster 3.0 package will include a new lithium-ion battery in the same dimensions as existing but 31-percent more efficient and with roughly 70 kilowatt-hours capacity. The 3.0 package also includes more effective […]

]]>Tesla is releasing a new upgrade package for its Roadster that will almost double the car’s range.

The company announced today that the Roadster 3.0 package will include a new lithium-ion battery in the same dimensions as existing but 31-percent more efficient and with roughly 70 kilowatt-hours capacity.

The 3.0 package also includes more effective low rolling resistance tires to reduce rolling resistance by 20-percent and new more efficient wheel bearings.

Further, an aerodynamic kit has been developed to cut cd of 0.36 to 0.31 or about 15 percent.

By combining the incremental gains from all these efficiency tweaks, Tesla is projecting that the Roadster’s range will increase from 244 miles to over 400 miles under ideal driving conditions.

As always, range will vary depending on drive conditions, and harder use will see range below this maximum threshold after an easy drive.

Built from 2008 to 2012, the Roadster was the first production car to be powered by a lithium-ion battery. Developments in battery technology have grown considerably since then.

The Model S launched summer 2012 with 60-kwh and 85-kwh battery is rated between 208 and 265 miles respectively. Company CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet Christmas day that the sedan for now will not get a new battery upgrade though down the road it will, he said, without being more specific.

Tesla in a blog post sums things saying it’s pleased with the net result and will do more in time to keep the Roadsters updated.

“Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 40-50 percent improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0, said Tesla in its statement. “There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles. We will be demonstrating this in the real world during a non-stop drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the early weeks of 2015. We are confident that this will not be the last update the Roadster will receive in the many years to come.”

However, and as was already the case, it doesn’t appear that the new battery will work with Superchargers, Tesla’s charging stations. Located throughout the U.S. and Europe, these stations can rapidly charge the Tesla Model S.

Tesla’s announcement also omits the price of all these improvements and doesn’t project if these upgrades will boost speed potential, not that that was lacking.

As it is, this Lotus Elise-based car can hit 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, with a top speed of 125 mph. The Roadster Sport shaves 0.2 seconds off that acceleration time.

]]>http://www.hybridcars.com/teslas-roadster-3-0-package-delivers-400-mile-range/feed/0Elon Musk Tweets Roadster Update News Coming This Weekhttp://www.hybridcars.com/elon-musk-tweets-roadster-update-news-coming-this-week/
http://www.hybridcars.com/elon-musk-tweets-roadster-update-news-coming-this-week/#commentsTue, 23 Dec 2014 15:53:41 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=232425Keeping to a promise made earlier this year that “something cool” would be done with the Roadster, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Friday details are coming this week. As usual, he gave few hints to make a perfectly reliable guess, but previous reports of what Musk also has termed an “exciting” upgrade have suggested a […]

]]>Keeping to a promise made earlier this year that “something cool” would be done with the Roadster, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Friday details are coming this week.

As usual, he gave few hints to make a perfectly reliable guess, but previous reports of what Musk also has termed an “exciting” upgrade have suggested a few possibilities.

Included could be a new battery retrofit for up to 400 miles range might happen as he told Auto Express UK, and the present car is not compatible with Superchargers, and suggestions have been Tesla could have a fix for that.

“The Roadster had an old generation battery,” he told Auto Express in October. “We’ll upgrade it to a new generation battery pack and it should have a range of about 400 miles, which will allow you to drive from LA to San Francisco non-stop.”

The California automaker has also said it wants a new super sports car, one that would need no excuses next to ultimate exotics, but this does not appear likely at this point.

]]>http://www.hybridcars.com/elon-musk-tweets-roadster-update-news-coming-this-week/feed/0Tesla Considering Model 3 SUV and Wagonhttp://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-mulling-model-3-suv-and-wagon/
http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-mulling-model-3-suv-and-wagon/#commentsMon, 27 Oct 2014 15:51:46 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=210434Tesla’s pending Gigafactory battery plant will be needed to enable production of nearly a quarter million electric cars later this decade, and while they’re at it, Model 3 may spin off an SUV and station wagon variant. This word of the proposed $35,000 car came last week from Tesla’s vice president for engineering, Chris Porritt. […]

]]>Tesla’s pending Gigafactory battery plant will be needed to enable production of nearly a quarter million electric cars later this decade, and while they’re at it, Model 3 may spin off an SUV and station wagon variant.

This word of the proposed $35,000 car came last week from Tesla’s vice president for engineering, Chris Porritt. Nothing is being ruled out, he told Auto Express, as the company seeks to morph from relative niche automaker to mass production manufacturer.

“We don’t know what type of customer we’re trying to appeal to yet, but we want to speak to more customers … Lots of them!” said the British-Born Tesla exec speaking to the UK publication. “We’ve got specific customers for Model S, we have an idea with Model X, but we need to appeal to more people with Model 3.

“We want this car to be £30,000 to £35,000 with derivatives which will appeal to all sorts of people. SUVs, estates [wagons] – who knows?”

Porritt said the Tesla is projected to be revealed 2016 for a 2017 launch. The Model 3 is presented as a BMW 3-Series fighter and alternately it’s been called “entry level,” but Auto Express termed it a compact executive car. This likely is a more appropriate description, even if it will be the lowest price point for Tesla at an estimated $35,000 plus.

And at the other end of the range, Tesla is thinking about a sports car, but Porritt was described as “coy” when asked about it.

“We may do a Roadster or a sports car again, but at the moment we are on a trajectory to get more volume rather than focus on a specialist product,” he said.

What ever Tesla decides to do, clear is it wants to build many more vehicles. Its total volume production including Model 3, Model S and Model X is to be “well over 200,000 a year,” Poritt said, thus the need for the Gigafactory.

The goal is to shift economies of scale with the largest battery plant in the world in order to bring prices down, profits up, and not have to cut range and driver expectations from the next wave of Tesla cars – what ever kinds these may be.

]]>http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-mulling-model-3-suv-and-wagon/feed/0Tesla Roadster Could Get 400-Mile, Supercharger-Capable Batteryhttp://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-roadster-could-get-400-mile-supercharger-capable-battery/
http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-roadster-could-get-400-mile-supercharger-capable-battery/#commentsFri, 15 Aug 2014 05:05:29 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=179641According to Autoblog Green, which got the story from Green Car Reports and ultimately, Auto Express, the Tesla Roadster which ceased production in 2012 will get a 400-mile range battery. You could say this is recycled battery news, and included is the longest-range li-ion battery yet may also get Supercharger compatibility. The hint emanated from […]

]]>According to Autoblog Green, which got the story from Green Car Reports and ultimately, Auto Express, the Tesla Roadster which ceased production in 2012 will get a 400-mile range battery. You could say this is recycled battery news, and included is the longest-range li-ion battery yet may also get Supercharger compatibility.

The hint emanated from a Tesla shareholder meeting in June when CEO Elon Musk said the company was developing “a fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster.”

Auto Express in turn revealed this will be a new pack.

“The Roadster had an old generation battery,” Musk said to Auto Express. “We’ll upgrade it to a new generation battery pack and it should have a range of about 400 miles, which will allow you to drive from LA to San Francisco non-stop.”

That’s a bunch more than Model S with 265 miles, and the 245 the Roadster could do.

The Roadster was built from 2008 and was Tesla’s proof of concept sold globally to somewhere around 2,400 people.

Sadly, the Roadster uses tech that is not presently able to be Supercharged. It would seem unlikely it won’t get this, and Musk said it will be “new generation” so what else would you expect? Would Tesla not give it Supercharger access?

Still unknown are costs of all this, or specific timing though Musk had said it would be during this year. Tesla characteristically offered no further information when asked by Autoblog Green.

]]>http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-roadster-could-get-400-mile-supercharger-capable-battery/feed/0Survey: Tesla Roadster Batteries Last Longer Than Projectedhttp://www.hybridcars.com/survey-tesla-roadster-batteries-last-longer-than-projected/
http://www.hybridcars.com/survey-tesla-roadster-batteries-last-longer-than-projected/#commentsMon, 15 Jul 2013 22:15:31 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=61652According to what may be the most comprehensive real-world electric vehicle battery capacity study to date, the Tesla Roadster’s battery has been projected to retain an average 80-85 percent of its charge holding capacity after 100,000 miles. This data on the 2008-2012 electric car model that’s been in production the longest in this current era […]

]]>According to what may be the most comprehensive real-world electric vehicle battery capacity study to date, the Tesla Roadster’s battery has been projected to retain an average 80-85 percent of its charge holding capacity after 100,000 miles.

This data on the 2008-2012 electric car model that’s been in production the longest in this current era of EVs was presented by Plug In America on Saturday at the Teslive event in Milpitas, Calif., and it beats expectations originally set by Tesla.

Projections Tesla made in 2006 were that the car would retain just 70 percent after 5 years of driving 10,000 miles per year, or an average of 50,000 miles.

While the average was shown to be positive, Plug In America’s projections also indicate a considerable degree of variability between vehicles and cautioned against surmising that every Roadster will meet the higher benchmark.

The results were derived from responses by verified Roadster owners from around the world. Another way of parsing the “80-85 percent” per 100,000 mile number is to say the Roadster lost about 3.7 ideal miles of range per 10,000 miles driven.

“Our study also found no discernible effect of climate on battery-pack longevity,” said Tom Saxton, chief science officer for Plug In America, who led the research. “Roadster owners in hot climates are not seeing noticeably different battery capacity profiles than owners in moderate climates.”

Qualified Results

Information from Tesla indicates 2,500 Roadsters in all were built, stats are provided by Tesla for more than 2,100 sold in 31 countries – with a good deal more than this believed to have actually been sold – and production ended January 2012.

The study compared two sets of data – one being 4-5 percent of all Roadster drivers accounting for around 10 percent of all miles driven – 122 actual owners – who responded to a several-minute voluntary survey. The other data set was from 106 Open Vehicle Monitoring System (OVMS) installed by Tesla owners. The latter is an anonymous data collection system. The two sets of data are not from the same people necessarily.

“To protect owner privacy, the OVMS data was contributed anonymously, so I can’t say exactly how much it overlaps the survey data,” said Saxton, “but I expect there’s some overlap. Still, the OVMS data is less self-selected so it adds to the quality of the distribution of the data for the study.”

The two sets of data for the most part agree suggesting reasonable expectation of accuracy and results are not far off of a smaller 2011 survey Saxton did in the Pacific Northwest.

What’s more, the study went in with eyes wide open, and stated since the 122 respondents were voluntary, they may have been biased either in favor or against the Roadster or Tesla, but that now seems less likely.

The respondents were reached online via social media avenues, and not via a comprehensive mailing to every single Roadster owner across the globe. Therefore, the more connected or socially engaged owners were believed more likely to have noticed the survey, and taken the time to answer it.

“I met a number of owners at Teslive who didn’t know about it,” said Saxton when asked about the quality of the data sampling, “and they are presumably far more socially active than the average Tesla owner.”

This said, the 4 percent is a relatively large sample size in qualified terms, and far larger, say, than some nationwide Gallup polls which may only survey a small fraction of 1 percent and deem that statistically significant to draw conclusions from.

The second-most comprehensive study Saxton is aware of is one also done by Plug In America on the Nissan Leaf. There just 1 percent of owners (240 people out of a far larger production volume) answered.

Between the two cars, Tesla owners indicated more favorable feedback in the hot climate areas, but here too, the survey allows for adjustment in time, assuming more data came forth.

“The data does thin out about 50,000 miles driven, so it’s possible a pattern may become visible as we collect more data, but with the current data set no climate pattern is visible,” said Saxton.

Other significant conclusions drawn by the Tesla survey include:

As there is considerable variation among vehicles with similar mileage, an individual
owner’s experience may vary significantly from the average.

The survey found no significant correlation between climate and battery pack longevity.

Individual experience may vary. The survey data for high-mileage vehicles is sparse with little variation in climate among those vehicles, so it’s possible an effect from climate will emerge as more data is collected.

The survey found no significant correlation between vehicle age and battery pack longevity, although the study has no data on the first year of use, nor use beyond 4.5 years.

The calculated amp-hour capacity is the most reliable measure of battery pack capacity. It would be a benefit if this value were readily visible to Roadster owners.

Lastly The survey’s written conclusions observe:

It’s curious that Tesla does not offer any sort of warranty on battery pack capacity, not previously as part of a new Roadster purchase, not as part of the extended warranty they are now offering Roadster owners as their warranties expire, and not even to Model S owners despite the purported improvement in battery chemistry and corresponding increase in both time and miles on the Model S battery warranty.

Plug In America was partly responsible in convincing Nissan to offer such a warranty after relatively small numbers of Leaf owners reported excessive capacity loss, particularly in hot first-wave roll-out states, including Arizona, Texas, and California.

We asked Saxton therefore to clarify his thoughts on Tesla’s “curious” lack of battery capacity warranty.

“Having a warranty that covers capacity loss, like the Nissan Leaf does, gives owners more assurance about the long term utility of their vehicle. That seems like a selling point to me, although it hasn’t been a big issue with current Roadster owners,” he said.

We then followed up with Tesla but were unable to receive a reply before deadline. If we do later, we can update this.

]]>http://www.hybridcars.com/survey-tesla-roadster-batteries-last-longer-than-projected/feed/0Tesla Reiterates Future Plans For Faster Roadsterhttp://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-reiterates-plans-for-faster-roadster/
http://www.hybridcars.com/tesla-reiterates-plans-for-faster-roadster/#commentsThu, 04 Apr 2013 05:08:17 +0000http://www.hybridcars.com/?p=56489We’ve heard before that Tesla wants to revive a range-topping sports car that will have no excuses against the world’s supercars, and recently company VP George Blankenship reiterated the company’s aspirations. Tesla is still rolling out the Model S sedan in the U.S. and soon it will be in Europe as well. It has a […]

]]>We’ve heard before that Tesla wants to revive a range-topping sports car that will have no excuses against the world’s supercars, and recently company VP George Blankenship reiterated the company’s aspirations.

Tesla is still rolling out the Model S sedan in the U.S. and soon it will be in Europe as well. It has a “high-profile location” lined up in central London for its first Tesla store, Blankenship told UK publication, Autocar, and before it goes significantly up-market with a super EV, it plans to launch other cars first.

These include its pending Model X for which it is collecting orders, and a lower priced car sized like a BMW 3-Series. In maybe half a decade ahead however, expect a new roadster quicker than the previous car’s 3.9 seconds to 60 mph, and likely costing more than the original Roadster.

“If you fast forward beyond that, we go back to the roadster and do things that people aren’t doing and push the envelope. That would be the next-generation roadster,” Blankenship said.

EV technology is still fast evolving, Blankenship said, and what Tesla does for an encore will need to exceed existing benchmarks.

“The original roadster was a proof-of-concept car,” said Blankenship. “We did an electric car with over a 200-mile range and 0-60mph in under four seconds. Back then, no one believed it was possible. And then we did the Model S saloon, with 0-60 mph in 4.4 second and a 300-mile range.”

This latest disclosure fits also with things CEO Elon Musk said last August about an electric “supercar” that could go head-to-head with Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis and cost north of $200,000.

“It was going to happen right after the Model X, but it is more important to the world that we do a more affordable electric car,” Musk said last August. “Hopefully, we will get to an electric supercar in four to five years.”